Bishops Report 1,092 New Abuse Charges

While pledging to stop the sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church, the nation’s bishops reported Friday that they had received 1,092 new allegations in 2004 against at least 756 priests and deacons.

Most of the new allegations involved molestations that occurred between 1965 and 1974, according to a second annual audit released Friday by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Half of the Catholic clerics accused last year had been named in connection with other alleged incidents and more than 70% have died, been defrocked or removed from the ministry.

Twenty-two, or 2%, of the new charges reported in 2004 came from victims who were still underage last year, the audit said. While noting that the number of such very recent cases appeared to be small, church leaders were cautious about drawing a too optimistic conclusion that the scandal is ending.

“The crisis of sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church is not over. What is over is the denial that this problem exists,” Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said at a Washington news conference Friday. She said the number of allegations probably was understated.

There are “many, many men and women who haven’t come forward, who probably never will,” she said. Many victims, she and other leaders said, wait years to report abuse, often until after their parents or the offender have died.

Since 1950, 11,750 allegations of sexual abuse of minors have been lodged across the country against 5,148 priests and deacons, McChesney said. Most of those reporting abuse were men who said they were between the ages of 11 and 14 when the molestations began.

Besides compiling new allegations, the study measured compliance with a landmark anti-abuse set of rules approved by the bishops in 2002. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People calls for, among other things, training lay people and youngsters on how to spot the signs of abuse.

According to Friday’s report, eight of the nation’s 195 Catholic dioceses and Eastern Rite territories had not complied with the youth protection charter. However, the report said, “No one should be misled into thinking that compliance with the charter will prevent future cases of abuse from occurring.”

The compliance audits of the dioceses were conducted by the Gavin Group of Boston, headed by former FBI agent William Gavin, who employed 56 auditors, many of whom were also former FBI agents.

Only the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., headed by conservative Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, refused to participate in the audit. No one is his office was immediately available for comment.

The scandal, which erupted in 2001 in Boston and spread around the country, has led to financial challenges to the American church. The cost of monetary settlements paid to victims and attorneys and for mental therapy through 2004 was $840 million nationwide, McChesney said.

That figure does not include a $100-million settlement in December reached with 50 alleged victims by the Diocese of Orange, said Father Joseph Fenton, a diocesan spokesman. Nor does it include future settlement costs faced by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for 544 sexual abuse claims, which victims’ attorneys have said could cost as much as $1 billion.

After two years of negotiations, efforts to reach an out-of-court settlement on those cases appeared to have stalled. A new settlement judge, Charles W. “Tim” McCoy, was named this week to revive the talks among lawyers for alleged victims; Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles; and his insurers.

In Boston, the Catholic lay group Voice of the Faithful called the report disappointing and disturbing.

“It is disturbing to see so many new cases and so many new allegations in the past year,” said James E. Post, the group’s president. He also was critical of plans next year to allow dioceses already found to be in compliance to audit themselves. He called it “backsliding.”

Meanwhile, a national sexual abuse victims support group on Friday questioned the independence of the bishops’ National Review Board, which oversees implementation of the anti-abuse rules. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called for more lay people and sexual abuse victims on the board.

All California dioceses except Fresno were found to be in compliance as of a Dec. 31 auditing deadline. But by mid-January, the Fresno diocese had overcome two deficiencies by reporting on the number of volunteers who work with minors, had undergone background checks, and had taken “safe environment” training to guard against sexual abuse.

Nationwide, Gavin said Friday, 17% of priests and deacons and 49% of children in Catholic schools had yet to participate in safe environment training.

Last year, the Los Angeles archdiocese was criticized by the bishops’ National Review Board, even though the 2003 audit separately found the archdiocese in compliance with the youth protection charter. The review board called the archdiocese “troubled” in 2003, and criticized Mahony for refusing to turn over church documents involving accused priests to a grand jury.

This year’s audit said the archdiocese was in compliance with the rules by offering pastoral care to victims and their families, responding promptly to new allegations and reporting them to civil authorities.

“We’ve worked very hard at all levels of the archdiocese to fulfill the spirit as well as the letter of the charter,” Los Angeles archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said. “Our No. 1 priority is the protection of our children, and I think the audit results show that commitment.”

Tamberg said that more than 21,000 lay volunteers, priests and deacons in schools and parishes had undergone a four-hour training course that includes how to set personal boundaries and what signs or circumstances may point to the possibility of sexual abuse.

The course includes watching videotaped interviews with convicted child molesters who speak of how they earned the trust of young people before abusing them, Tamberg said.

Four former FBI agents, he added, have been retained by the archdiocese to investigate allegations of sexual abuse and report to the archdiocese’s lay-dominated Clergy Misconduct Oversight Board, which advises Cardinal Mahony.

Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, president of the U.S. bishops conference, called the last three years of scandal “a humbling experience” for the church.

“We bishops have had to face the sinful betrayal of trust by those who should have been most trustworthy,” Skylstad wrote in the report.

“We have had to deal with the continuing consequences of these betrayals. We have pledged to hold ourselves accountable, as far as is humanly possible, to see to it that this betrayal never happens again.”

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Times staff writer Jean Guccione contributed to this report.